Manly Sea Eagles recruit Luke Brooks has admitted to Matty Johns the relief he felt after leaving the Wests Tigers.
Brooks enjoyed one of the best debuts in NRL history when he carved up the Dragons in 2013 and was named man-of-the-match as a teenager.
It immediately drew unfair comparisons with some of the game’s greats and Brooks struggled to live up to the hype at the dysfunctional club.
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Brooks was named the 2014 Rookie of the Year and the 2018 Dally M Halfback of the Year, but he couldn’t get the Tigers to finals.
Brooks currently owns the unwanted record as the most experienced player in the NRL yet to play finals.
But now he’s joined the Sea Eagles the 29-year-old has a new lease on life and will partner Kangaroos and Maroons star Daly Cherry-Evans in the halves.
Brooks sat down in Las Vegas this week with Matty Johns who asked the half how life has been since arriving at Brookvale this summer.
“It’s been good, I feel like I’ve gone over there and I’ve just been allowed to worry about footy,” Brooks said on Fox League.
“I probably didn’t realise at the time, at the Tigers, how much pressure was on me because I was there for over 10 years and all sorts of things went on and coming over to Manly I realise now I don’t have that sort of pressure and I can just go out and enjoy playing footy which is massive for me.
“So far so good and I’m just looking forward to going out there and playing some footy.
The blokes in the spine, Chez, Crokes and Turbo out the back, just their footy IQ is very high and that just allows me to worry about my job and I can just focus on what works for me.”
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Foxsports.com.au asked Brooks last month if it feels like a breath of fresh air going from being the ‘big dog’ to blending in at a club.
“Yeah definitely. I think it suits my personality as well, I like to fly under the radar,” he said.
“There’s a lot of ‘big dogs’ here so I can just sit back and let them take (the attention)… That’s another thing that attracted me to the club.”
The Sea Eagles face the Rabbitohs in the NRL season-opener in Las Vegas at 1:30pm AEDT on Sunday.
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